To: tero kuittinen who wrote (12219 ) 10/24/2000 6:22:38 PM From: Maurice Winn Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 29986 <Maurice - you argue that Vodafone or Qualcomm may be on the verge of taking over Globalstar - probably based on the Australia/China/Russia outlook. And that's cruel. It's cruel, because it offers an artificial glimmer of hope. > Funnily, a few days after you wrote that, QUALCOMM bought more shares in Globalstar by converting their vendor financing to a loan and stockholding. Vodafone has also put in more money [in exchange for shares]. So the process is underway. As I pointed out at the time, that is NOT good for existing shareholders and they are being sliced and diced as the incredibly long, slow, tortuous, torturous soft rollout wends its languid way around the world while shareholders gradually collapse financially in the long, dark, night. It's now half a year since you wrote that. We remain very much in the "Jam Tomorrow" jam. Waiting to be saved by the distant promise of SCADA, ARNAV, IFN, "Time or Money" promotions, more accurately described as "Your Money or Your Life" if you check out the absurdly expensive Globalstar minute rates from Outback Australia to the USA or from Poland to USA using the absurdly greedy Vodafone UK Service Provider which shows NO Globalstar service outside Europe on their coverage map which is now half a year out of date - they prepared it in June, which shows how much attention Vodafone is giving to Globalstar. I thought you might need another brief Globalstar Gloat [GG]to cheer you through the long and cold dark days of Finland, or Noo Yawk if you have been sucked into the huge maw of The New Paradigm and moved there. If you are in Noo Yawk, you could have the added pleasure of wandering down to the G! Chairman's lair to bait Bernie. Many were expecting Globalstar to fail in Y2K. They have been disabused but continue with one of the highest short interests [4th or thereabouts]. Quarterly results will be out in a few days. I doubt we'll have 200,000 subscribers [as per plan]. I doubt the monthly MOU per subscriber will be 150 [as per plan]. I doubt the useless and greedy service providers have improved the situation. No lessons were learned from Iridium. I wonder when the Service Providers will be slapped in the face with their exclusivity contracts. I hope the lawyers are ready to roll. The weirdest thing is that Globalstar seems unable to determine how many subscribers there are or MOU have been used, according to the conference call. Maybe Bernie is operating an honesty-box system. Misery today, Jam Tomorrow while a ghostly constellation swoops through space unused. Mqurice PS: Market Researchers are the most absurd species extant on the planet. Fancy Bernie and the Globalstar Gang [GG] believing their predictions of demand. They ask stupid questions such as "Would you like a phone which you could use anywhere on earth?" Not surprisingly, the respondent says "Yes". They then ask, "Would you pay $1 a minute for the service?" The respondent says yes, no or maybe and they count them up then multiply by everyone on earth. "How about $2 a minute?" A few drop off. A few years later, they do it in real-time, in 3D, but nobody told the subscriber there are a few glitches and the handset weighs a ton and the battery goes flat in less than a day and they can't receive calls anyway. So guess what? I've seen real, live market researchers up close and they are NOT engineers. They have learned a bit of statistics [sort of] and that's about it. They are more like New Age Mystics than scientists. [Just a bit of venting - bear in mind, some of my best friends are market researchers and I think they should be treated as human so I'm not prejudiced]